The Key - A Miss Silver Mystery by Patricia Wentworth

 Beautifully written detective story evokes another era

This Miss Silver novel is set in England during World War II, at a time when people living in rural communities would have been well aware that seemingly ordinary people in their midst could be Nazi sympathisers.

A Jewish scientist has fled Germany after losing his wife and daughter and is lodging in a house in  a small village, while working to complete a new weapon that he has invented,  which will help the British Government.

When the scientist, Michael Harsch, is found dead in the local church, apparently from shooting himself on the eve of handing over his formula, the Government send Major Garth Albany to investigate because his Aunt Sophy lives in the same village and so he has some local knowledge.

Aunt Sophy lives close to the house where the dead scientist, Michael Harsch had been staying. He had been looked after by a young, woman, Janice Meade, who had become a good friend to him.

Garth and Janice had been friends while growing up in the village together, and Patricia Wentworth allows this friendship to blossom into romance during the novel, when the couple eventually join forces to investigate Harsch’s death.

A romance during a murder investigation is one of Patricia Wentworth’s trademarks, setting her apart from other detective novelists of the time, but it does nothing to hinder the plot.

There is no shortage of potential Nazi sympathisers living in the village. Bush, the verger at the church is of German descent and Miss Brown, a mysterious woman who has suddenly become Aunt Sophy’s companion, also arouses Garth’s suspicions.

The Key, first published in 1946, is Patricia Wentworth’s eighth novel featuring Miss Maud Silver, a retired governess with a fondness for Tennyson, who finds it easy to blend into her surroundings and get people to talk to her. She works closely with Scotland Yard, who respect her ability, and derive benefit from the information she is able to draw out of people in conversation that would otherwise have been unavailable to them.

Miss Silver appears about halfway through the novel, after being called in by Aunt Sophy and Garth, based on her reputation for solving mysteries, when they think the wrong person has been arrested by the police for the killing. They had heard about her from a cousin of Aunt Sophy, who had previously benefited from Miss Silver’s talent for investigation.

Although the novel was written more than 80 years ago, it is engaging and very readable. The period in which it is set is beautifully evoked and the characters are well portrayed. Patricia Wentworth deserves her reputation as one of the Golden Age queens of crime.

The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie

‘Light-hearted’ thriller lacks detailed plot 

The Seven Dials Mystery is
more thriller than mystery

This 1929 novel is the second book Agatha Christie wrote following her divorce from her adulterous first husband, Colonel Archibald Christie, from whom she was separated in 1927. Looking back on this time in her life, she has commented: “I was gaining confidence over my writing and felt that I would have no difficulty in producing a book every year, and possibly a few short stories as well.”

She also said that she found "light-hearted, thriller type" novels easy to write as they didn't require too much plotting or planning. This is a very revealing comment and may resonate with some readers if they have found they don’t enjoy her thrillers as much as her detective stories.

I read The Seven Dials Mystery for the second time recently because I am working through Agatha Christie’s novels in chronological order to review them all here.

Although I have found her Poirot novels keep getting better as I have been going along, I didn’t think The Seven Dials Mystery was as enjoyable as her previous thrillers, The Secret Adversary and The Man in the Brown Suit.

I found the dialogue at the opening of the book reminiscent of a Bertie Wooster novel by P G Wodehouse, when a group of young people are enjoying breakfast together at a country house party, and characters called Ronny, Pongo, and Socks, are coming up with a jolly idea for a joke to play on one of their fellow guests.

Agatha Christie can just about convince readers that the police are grateful for the help of Poirot or Miss Marple with their cases, but to believe that Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard is eager to enlist the help of Bundle, aka Lady Eileen Brent, for espionage work later in the book, is perhaps stretching credibility too far.

The original dust jacket of the
1929 first edition

The novelist Val McDermid writes, in her introduction to the 2017 paperback edition of The Seven Dials Mystery, that Agatha Christie is deliberately subverting the thriller genre to poke fun at it. This may be true, or it could be that Agatha Christie was enjoying her new freedom following her divorce and felt like writing something fun and frothy rather than putting in the hard grind to produce one of her clever, tightly plotted, detective stories that would keep the reader guessing until the end.

The review in the Times Literary Supplement of 4 April 1929 was for once markedly unenthusiastic about a Christie book, saying: "It is a great pity that Mrs Christie should in this, as in a previous book, have deserted the methodical procedure of inquiry into a single and circumscribed crime, for the romance of universal conspiracy and international rogues.”

However, my slight disappointment with The Seven Dials Mystery, which was Agatha Christie’s ninth novel, won’t deter me from reading her other thrillers when I finally get to them.

I’m looking forward now to re-reading Number 10 on the chronological list, which is Murder at the Vicarage. This 1930 mystery novel introduces her amateur detective, Miss Marple, who is my favourite Agatha Christie detective character.

Buy from Amazon

Murder After Christmas by Rupert Latimer

Serving up mystery, mince pies and merriment

Murder After Christmas is a
treat for cosy crime fans

This Christmas-themed whodunit was out of print for 75 years, meaning cosy crime fans have been missing a festive treat all that time.

First published in 1944, the little-known detective novel Murder After Christmas by Rupert Latimer has finally been made available to today’s readers by being published in the British Library Crime Classics series, and I found it an enjoyable read in the cold days after Christmas this year.

A family invite their rich old uncle to stay at their country house because, they joke, Mussolini had made it impossible for him to visit his Italian villa at Christmas as usual. He has written to them saying that his hotel in London has also been commandeered because of the war.

There are humorous remarks made about murdering the old man for his money by some members of the household before his arrival and therefore it is not much of a surprise for the reader when ‘good old Uncle Willie’, is found dead in the snow on Boxing Day dressed as Santa Claus.

His hosts, the Redpath family, appear to be kind-hearted people who had said before his arrival that they would like to give the 90-year old a good time over Christmas so that he might remember them in his will.

Other distant relatives also take an interest in Uncle Willie and visit him at the Redpath’s house in the run up to Christmas and send him parcels. Uncle Willie is known to have a sweet tooth and he enjoys lots of mince pies and chocolates before Christmas.

After his body is found, the police suspect he has been poisoned and because he is found dead during a Christmas party there are plenty of suspects for Superintendent Culley to choose from as he carries out a complex and thorough murder investigation.

Rupert Latimer tells the story in a light-hearted way, putting in plenty of seasonal touches. Only one set of footprints in the snow lead to the body. Two people are dressed as Santa Claus at the Boxing Day party to add to the confusion. And why are a stash of mince pies found sewn up inside the seat of a chair in the old man’s bedroom?

Latimer was born at Wildernesse Park in Kent, 
the home of his grandmother, Lady Hillingdon
 

Unusually, the Redpaths helpfully invite Superintendent Culley to stay with them in the dead man’s room to see if he can take suspicion away from them by solving the mystery.

Rupert Latimer was the pen name of Algernon Vernon Mills, who was born in 1905 at Wildernesse Park in Kent, the home of his grandmother, the Dowager Lady Hillingdon. 

Despite his privileged background, he had an unfortunate experience as a child during a holiday in France. After eating some strawberries growing wild, he contracted typhoid fever.

His elder sister and their nurse both died, but although he survived, he was lame afterwards and suffered from epilepsy.

As a young man, he pursued a career on the stage, working in repertory, where he met the playwright Arnold Ridley, who later became famous for his part in Dad’s Army.

Latimer also wrote some humorous novels and the detective story Death in Real Life, but then his health declined and he was diagnosed with a brain tumour and died in 1953.

It was to take until 2022 for Murder After Christmas to be reissued by British Library Crime Classics. I found it to be entertaining and well written with a satisfying ending and it was a good distraction from my own left over mince pies!

Buy Murder After Christmas from Amazon

Home